First, Israel is already a Jewish state, and second, from the perspective of its Arab citizens, it’s a state that’s already seen as a preferential rather than full democracy. And passage of this gratuitous and provocative new law will only widen the growing and still irreconcilable gap between the two.

But now in the highly charged world of Israel’s political right, it’s made its biggest advances to date in the effort to enshrine Israel’s Jewish identity, as one of its Basic Laws that provide the foundation for the country’s legal and political system in the absence of a formal constitution, which Israel does not have. The bill’s defenders (among them Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu) maintain that it states the obvious, is long overdue, and is also essential to making clear to the Arab world (and the Palestinians in particular) that there can be no right of return for Palestinians into Israel proper.

“The natural and best way is for the ‘national’ character of a state to be ensured by the very fact that it has a particular majority.” And, as if taking its cue from the Zionist leader, that’s just what the Israelis have done.

It’s a Jewish state not just through declarations but through deeds as well. History, tradition, law, symbols, and practice anchor Israel’s Jewish nation-state identity through its ancient biblical connections; centuries of exilotic longing; a Law of Return; a national anthem that puts a return to Jewish Zion upfront; a flag that depicts a Jewish prayer shawl and star of David; a Hebrew language unique to only one nation-state; and, above all, as Jabotinsky had hoped, a population of 8 million, 6 million-plus of whom are Jews. It’s hard to believe that despite the secular character of Israel that aliens arriving in Tel Aviv wouldn’t quickly realize that they had landed in a distinct nation-state run by Jewish Israelis.

And yet a series of laws (most notably the Law of Return and the 1952 Citizenship Law) explicitly favor Israeli Jews. Other administrative rules and regulations give preference to Jewish and Zionist organizations in matters relating to access to land and housing. Then there is systemic, institutional, and societal discrimination that simply does not ensureequal allocation of state budgets and symmetrical benefits to Arab and Jewish communities. The clear absence of a shared public square where Israeli Jews and Arabs can participate equally and take pride in the symbols of the state — national anthem, flag, state holidays — can only reinforce a sense of isolation and separation. That Israeli Arabs may well enjoy more rights than citizens of many Arab countries and would likely not choose to live elsewhere, including in a putative state of Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, are often arguments used to rationalize their second-class status. But these arguments really don’t work. If you are a real democracy then you make a determined commitment to try to be one, and that means doing everything possible to ensure that all citizens of the stare are treated equally in a de jure and de facto manner too.

1. Either democracy is the enemy in the sense that it is, like communism, and other collective ideologies, a method of propagating fears to suppress individual innovation, self-faith, God, diversity and success out of envy and self-asceticism.

2. Perhaps the issue is gerrymandering or manufacturing of facts, by battling democracy through republican-esque funding and manufacturing consent.

3. Israel never intent on being a democracy and can’t be do to religious and exclusive foundation thus rendering it incompatible with modern institutions and international peace. Apartheid, not democracy.

4. Keep in mind total population of Palestinians in the world outnumbers the total number of Israelis: 11 million Palestinians to approximately 9 million Israelis. (If we want to count Jews then we ought to count Muslims, which would be no comparison). Obviously, the Palestinians are not in Israel and the majority have left Palestine due to the occupation; but this diaspora of refugees would not exist if Israel wasn’t there. Democracy, or apartheid?

“Israel is a relatively young country. If you looked at the United States in 1830, roughly 60 years after independence, you would have found a nation where women couldn’t vote (and many white males, too), blacks were slaves, and native Americans’ lands were seized and tribes forcibly relocated. In a way, Israel’s situation was much closer to America’s in the 1950s, when millions of African-Americans suffered de facto and de jure discrimination. So it’s critically important to give maturing democracies an opportunity to deal with inequalities and discriminatory policies. After all, it took America a full century and half, a civil war, and a bitterly contested civil rights movement to reconcile the promise contained in the Declaration of Independence with the reality that our Constitution validated chattel slavery. And by the looks of Ferguson, Missouri, we still have a ways to go before eliminating the patterns of racial discrimination in our system.”

In essence the rise of Libertarianism in America is nothing to be jovial about because it represents only one thing: the decline of an empire.

Libertarianism is intended to be the solution to America’s governmental and business intrusions into daily life but in reality, the rise of libertarianism is only the signal of the failure of the american nation to be united and the absence of culture in this country; slavery to a system of finite resources and power.

There are many economic and political inconsistencies with Libertarianism that are ignored by its adherents because it is easy to criticize something without an alternative. Libertarianism offers no solution; only criticism. “Perfectionism”.

Libertarianism is actually conservatism fully realized; “god is dead so we’ve got to appeal to the lowest instinct of man – hubris.”

Lot of Libertarians, like Ron Paul himself, don’t realize the fact that Ayn Rand believed the idea of God to be obsolete. How then, can a “christian” man identify with a godless philosophy? The Right-Wing Christians of the US used to claim that communism was the deification of the state. What then, is libertarianism, but the deification of the dollar? The deification of the self?

If there is one thing I have come to learn to really appreciate it is my individual freedom.

It is becoming extremely taboo to tout your individualism.

It is often viewed as a sense of paranoia.

I have learned to face a fact: most people prefer to rely on others – instead of themselves – for financial/political gain.

They themselves do not possess the qualities necessary for financial success.

The irony is that these qualities are not just scarce but that most people are unaware of them entirely.

These qualities are spiritual, and this is the irony, that it requires a form of spiritualism to succeed in the realm of materialism.

This is my philosophy of Islam, a perfect blend of secularism and spirituality. This is my version of what I believe is perfect Abrahamic monotheism.

As a Syrian, I have seen the lines drawn between believer and non-believer; adherent & heretic. Usually the lines are separated between Alawite & Sunni, but my version of pure Islam embodies neither and at the same time a little bit of both.

My emphasis in this post is on how my philosophy in life has brought me to a confrontation with a worldly dilemma: collectivism – the inability of other human beings to develop a sense of self-respect and individualism due to a variety of reasons ranging from insecurity to familial underdevelopment to political suppression.

In America the general idea is that Republicans, the right-wing, Libertarians, the tea party, Ron Paul, Ann Coulter & Ayn Rand are the de-facto symbols of individual freedom – especially the individual freedom that birthed the American model of governance.

Initially, the preservation of individual rights sprung from the individual concern about the fate of his most basic rights. Eventually, once the individual discovered his innovative capacity, he wanted a new form of individual rights: the protection of intellectual property.

The general narrative against collectivism is that human beings form tribes that eventually turn into governmental forces that suppress individual innovation and ultimately bring an end to prosperity and the general welfare.

The USSR, Nazi Germany, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Iran, the DRC – these are all national entities which have evidently subjugated their people to terrible standards of living throughout history – some still exist today.

My ultimate question is, from where does this ultimate desire to stifle the “ultimately economic” freedom of the individual?

Why must we as individuals suppress our self-expression, our ambition to be great, our desire for dignity and freedom…for the sake of preserving the insecurity of other individuals?

But what insecurity do I speak of? If all individuals in a given society are free to do as they wish; what fear of failure ought any of these individuals have? The fear of fulfillment? The fear of not being acknowledged? The fear of being overlooked? The fear of financial insecurity? Or, less innocently, the fear of not losing exclusivity and power?

Ultimately…my political philosophy can be described as a classical liberal monotheist, with some socialist elements that recognize the crimes of history. Conservatism, collectivism guised as individualism, and all other forms of collective thought-manufacturing, is the antithesis of freedom, salvation, enlightenment, education, happiness & prosperity.

Capitalism purports to be the preserver of competition but in reality what it does it strip the realm of ‘God’ as the superior deity in order to fill a void or insecurity of skill, thereby relying on arbitrary ownership of ideas. This is capitalism. Communism does the same.

All the isms of this world serve one giant agenda of collectivist persuasion – to turn men into sheep and to herd them into giant collectives and to pin them against one another – the age old ‘divide and conquer’.

Meanwhile all the moderates, the spiritualists, the self-reliant, the skilled, the humble, the abundant…whose currencies are neither government nor business…but rather…God and nature…these are the messengers whose messages are as warnings to a world of ignorance; a world that was never free but in which free men are constantly struggling to preserve their dignity and purpose.

It is us who recognize the fallacies of man, who have read history and understand the imperfections of our entire race, it is us who struggle.

I have no currency. I have no religion. I have no ideology. I am but a man of Nature and the one and only Supreme Being.

Those men who wish for more than nature wish for power and vanity. They wish to be worshipped and to worship that which is not our God. Beware especially of the fanatics.

These men are slaves of the systems of ownership of other men that human beings have created in this world. Capitalism owns men by convincing them they can achieve higher social status and greater acceptance if they conform to a set of a capitalist set of values that ultimately enslaves you to that methodology of thinking, thereby preserving power in the hands of that very same capitalist elite. Communism does the same by making you think that you are more powerful and socially reputable if you propagate/advertise yourself as an ascetic intellectual who does not require the basic needs of man. Ultimately both of these philosophies have a non-genuine intent: social status and power.

Anarchists are another great tool for power-mongers as they promote jealousy by pinning the only source of potential stability – government – as the enemy.

Remember, government is not necessarily the problem, but rather, the ideas that are used to enslave our governments to groups of men: cults.

Democracy and socialism have been hi-jacked by power-hungry capitalists, communists, anarchists and such.

More ideas and isms will spring forth in the future to destabilize countries, usurp resources, and maintain power.

Therefore, power is the ultimate goal and nation-states are their tools. Private and public security forces that inhibit the spread of genuine democracy and socialism are the controllers of this world. The ideologues. These are the kingpins. The money, the resources, the militias: these are their tools.

Now that I have no fear I am free again because I see the ignorance of this world and that my God is perfect. Fatalism has always been true.

Men are at fault for their intentions. There are consequences.

The true men of this world have sought truth and education; they have equally sought to spread it.

Most men are busy worrying about the power and vanities of this world, when they could merely focus on their gifts and blessings.

P.S.

Do not allow your ambitions to distort the truest definition and origin of a word or concept.

There is a huge difference between classical liberalism and libertarianism, and conservatism. I align classical liberalism with my God of Islamic monotheism, and get socialist nationalism. The gods of other ideologies are either other men, preachers, clerics, power-wielders or themselves.

(The genius of capitalism is that it allows for one man or one small group to use money to hire and own employees and their skills so as to make it seem as though human beings are individually capable of perfection when in fact the capitalist must enslave workers upon workers to curate perfection).

They say robust capitalism is the greatest system in our world because it maximizes the benefits of all men in any given society.

This perspective is especially true of the American narrative we are ‘indoctrinated’ into through our public and private institutions.

As an immigrant to this country, I must say, however I am profoundly disappointed.

I came to this country at the age of 6, leaving my homeland, the Middle East.

Both of my parents are Syrian, born and raised in Damascus all of their lives.

I am a proud Syrian.

Deep down, I also want to say that I am a proud Syrian-American, but this country has caused me some pain. Bigotry has caused not only me but much of the world its miseries.

Global misery stems from one over-arching concept: we are all currently suffering from American fascist ideology; unfettered exceptionalism. Manifested, it is in actuality state-capitalism.

Just like China & Russia, the supposed crown-jewels of communism, America uses its ideology as a method of coercion, manipulating capitalism into a dangerous form of Christian-Fascism, in which citizens/constituents are subjugated to a pseudo-democratic system of law that ignores history, statistic & common humanity.

While deep down, I do have much love for this country, or at least, the philosophy for which it attempted to stand, it is without a doubt that a certain religious fascism has crept in, with roots deeply embedded in christian evangelism and zionism. It has left vast communities disenfranchised, ostracized and socio-economically deprived.

I came to this country as an immigrant – and this country made sure to hang that label as an emblem of my un-americaness over my head until my demise.

Obama is trying to fight for immigrants, but the fight is against the same aforementioned ideology embraced by so many Americans: bigotry.

I was forced out of my job nearly a year ago, which left me struggling to make sense of my socio-economic situation. I worked for four years with my last employer before losing the position due to pressure from Republicans to discourage immigration reform and immigration altogether.

But what Republicans don’t understand is that it is precisely the policies of Republicanism which have been implemented on and off by various American officials throughout our short history that have impoverished and completely desecrated other nations and communities. This can be exhibited at one of the peaks of America’s imperial series’ – in South America. Aiding rebels in Nicaragua and overthrowing democratically elected leaders in Chile – how does America not expect an influx of immigrants to the world’s most spiritually and economically promising nations?

How did America become so promising? And why is the rest of the world not?

Generally speaking, in the 21st century, when we refer to prosperous countries, if it isn’t America we mention it is any one of the leading european powers, such as the UK, France & Germany.

America, the crown-jewel of modern christian evangelism, would have you believe in a linear history which places the breakthrough of western democracy in the 18th century as the standard model of global justice.

The ensuing years would prove that the democratic revolutions of other nations would soon be under attack by the vary nation that is supposed to be the ideals’ founding progenitor.

In 1952, Iran’s democratically elected leader, Prime Minister Mossadegh, was overthrown in a covert CIA mission because his policies we deemed a threat to ‘global security’ and the ‘western model for global justice’ and in other words, ‘western capitalism’ (Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men).

But the reality is that the west, as exhibited by their behavior, does not embody the capitalism is touts. Once competitors begin exposing Christian Fascism – they are immediately disenfranchised. Mossadegh of Iran was among those casualties.

America still thinks it is the unbridled hero of the 20th century for bringing an end to state-communism, but the reality is there is a monster hiding in the backyard of America’s philosophical stronghold – Christian Fascism. As the USSR raped the world with collectivist propaganda under the umbrella of communism, the USA put a pill in the drinks of all vulnerable nations under the banner of being the holy arbiters of earth and the rightfully chosen wielders of power and governance.

One man who quickly learned of the USA’s treachery to genuine human rights was a man who himself was conflicted about the definition of human rights himself – Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, originally an ally of the US, was propped up against the USSR under the banner of Wahhabist Islam and the fight against the political atheism of the east. He soon learned that once the specter of communism was defeated, he would have another enemy – his own friend: the U.S.A. Osama bin Laden may have thought he was fighting for freedom, but he was indeed carrying out the agenda of Christian Fascism – the anti-freedom, imperialist agenda of the West – to stifle communism and other threats to their power. Perhaps it was Osama’s own twisted conception of what constituted a just society that made him vulnerable to American cunning and deception. His foolishness and immoral intent threw him right into the hands of Western deviousness.

Their greatest allies are their purported enemies: Osama bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Communism. These are their tools for constant hegemony . The tactic is to constantly generate new enemies and threats that require retaliation and response, thereby justifying foreign escapades and the usurping of foreign resources, aka colonialism/imperialism.

It is this very system that initiated the trans-atlantic slave trade, which has repercussions not only felt today but even unknown. African-Americans suffered the most due to the institutionalization of christian fascism, manifested through segregation and racism. Today, we see the repercussions on a daily basis every time a clearly culpable white police officer shoots and kills an innocent black male. We see it in the way the media portrays the African-American culture, the way in which bias is propagated in order to protect the problems in our institutions.

As an immigrant who is still struggling to obtain ‘normal’ access to America’s abundance, I must say I am very disappointed with the way it has gone. I still support Obama’s initiative, but let it be known that the underlying problem is much much greater. America’s demons are coming back to haunt it every day, as reminder of the crimes it has committed against other nations throughout history.

Will things change? Perhaps. Perhaps not entirely; perhaps not perfectly; perhaps not at all. There is much at stake – one particular issue at stake being the potential humiliation of western christian fascist culture which has had this country in its grip for some time now.

It all starts with knowledge.

Keep in mind, the motive of all action is belief (ethic/religion), which forms ideology, which then manifests itself as a political ideology. If that is understood, it can also be understood that the source of the problem is that an un-ethical belief has a tight grip on America. Once Americans embrace a universal ethical system, the unjust facets of the law may lose ground.

2. No one theory or philosophy works (everything is a dogma – my dogma is a purer monotheism)

3. Capitalism as understood in the West is based on an assumption that ownership is sufficient to create a system of prosperous, self-sufficient individuals with protected rights

4. Communism and the USSR echo the same imperialism of the West under its banner of capitalism, international security, democracy and justice

5. Predestination is the belief that all is written/known

6. I have a lot to spill from my soul – for my own personal fulfillment and to perhaps help further social justice (freeing minds and the world)

7. Capitalism does not protect individual rights; it convinces you that you as an individual do not possess the means to attain a level of self-sufficiency, prosperity, peace and happiness.

8. Theism and Atheism have much in common as both seek to control individual behavior by stifling individual freedom through social traditions, customs and taboos, under the premise of either being devoted to God or devoted to the ego (lying about the level of ‘perfection’ human beings are actually capable of).